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BUYING  A  HORSE 


1 1 1 1 1 1 1  III  II II 


BUYING     A 
HORSE 

BY 

William  Dean  Howells 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

The  Riverside  Press  Cambridge 
1916 


1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1  urn 


mm  nun  urn  i>  Mr; 


t 


COPYRIGHT,    1S79 

BY    HOUGHTON,    OSGOOD    &    CO. 

COPYRIGHT,    I916 

BY  HOUGHTON    MIFFLIN    COMPANY 

ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 


BUYING  A   HORSE 


BUYING    A    HORSE 


F  one  has  money  enough,  there 
seems  no  reason  why  one  should 
not  go  and  buy  such  a  horse  as  he 
wants.  This  is  the  commonly  accepted 
theory,  on  which  the  whole  commerce  in 
horses  is  founded,  and  on  which  my  friend 
proceeded. 

He  was  about  removing  from  Charles- 
bridge,  where  he  had  lived  many  happy 
years  without  a  horse,  farther  into  the 
country,  where  there  were  charming  drives 
and  inconvenient  distances,  and  where  a 
horse  would  be  very  desirable,  if  not  quite 
necessary.  But  as  a  horse  seemed  at  first 
an  extravagant  if  not  sinful  desire,  he  be- 
[    3    ] 


BUYING  A   HORSE 

gan  by  talking  vaguely  round,  and  rather 
hinting  than  declaring  that  he  thought 
somewhat  of  buying.  The  professor  to 
whom  he  first  intimated  his  purpose  flung 
himself  from  his  horse's  back  to  the  grassy 
border  of  the  sidewalk  where  my  friend 
stood,  and  said  he  would  give  him  a  few 
points.  "  In  the  first  place  don't  buy  a 
horse  that  shows  much  daylight  under  him, 
unless  you  buy  a  horse-doctor  with  him  ; 
get  a  short-legged  horse ;  and  he  ought  to 
be  short  and  thick  in  the  barrel,"  —  or 
words  to  that  effect.  "  Don't  get  a  horse 
with  a  narrow  forehead  :  there  are  horse- 
fools  as  well  as  the  other  kind,  and  you 
want  a  horse  with  room  for  brains.  And 
look  out  that  he  's  all  right  forward." 

"  What 's  that  ?  "  asked  my  friend,  hear- 
ing this  phrase  for  the  first  time. 

"  That  he  is  n't  tender  in  his  fore-feet, — 
that  the  hoof  is  n't  contracted,"  said  the 
professor,    pointing   out    the   well-planted 
foot  of  his  own  animal. 
[    4     1 


BUYING  A  RORSE 

"What  ought  I  to  pay  for  a  horse?" 
pursued  my  friend,  struggling  to  fix  the 
points  given  by  the  professor  in  a  mind 
hitherto  unused  to  points  of  the  kind. 

"  Well,  horses  are  cheap,  now  ;  and  yor 
ought  to  get  a  fair  family  horse  —  You 
want  a  family  horse  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"  Something  you  can  ride  and  drive 
both  ?  Something  your  children  can 
drive  ?  " 

"  Yes,  yes." 

"  Well,  you  ought  to  get  such  a  horse 
as  that  for  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  dol- 
lars." 

This  was  the  figure  my  friend  had 
thought  of ;  he  drew  a  breath  of  relief. 
"  Where  did  you  buy  your  horse  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  always  get  my  horses  "  —  the 
plural  abashed  my  friend  —  "at  the  Chev- 
aliers'. If  you  throw  yourself  on  their 
mercy,  they  '11  treat  you  well.  I  '11  send 
you  a  note  to  them." 

[    5     j 


BUYING  A   HORSE 

"  Do ! "  cried  my  friend,  as  the  profes- 
sor sprang  upon  his  horse,  and  galloped 
away. 

My  friend  walked  home  encouraged^ 
his  purpose  of  buying  a  horse  had  not 
seemed  so  monstrous,  at  least  to  this 
hardened  offender.  He  now  began  to  an- 
nounce it  more  boldly ;  he  said  right  and 
left  that  he  wished  to  buy  a  horse,  but 
that  he  would  not  go  above  a  hundred. 
This  was  not  true,  but  he  wished  to  act 
prudently,  and  to  pay  a  hundred  and 
twenty-five  only  in  extremity.  He  car- 
ried the  professor's  note  to  the  Chevaliers', 
who  duly  honored  it,  understood  at  once 
what  my  friend  wanted,  and  said  they 
would  look  out  for  him.  They  were  sorry 
he  had  not  happened  in  a  little  sooner,  — 
they  had  just  sold  the  very  horse  he 
wanted.  I  may  as  well  say  here  that  they 
were  not  able  to  find  him  a  horse,  but 
that  they  used  him  with  the  strictest 
honor,  and  that  short  of  supplying  his 
want  they  were  perfect. 
•  [    0    J 


BUYING  A  HORSE 

In  the  mean  time  the  irregular  dealers 
began  to  descend  upon  him,  as  well  as 
amateurs  to  whom  he  had  mentioned  his 
wish  for  a  horse,  and  his  premises  at  cer- 
tain hours  of  the  morning  presented  the 
effect  of  a  horse-fair,  or  say  rather  a  mu- 
seum of  equine  bricabrac.  At  first  he 
blushed  at  the  spectacle,  but  he  soon  be- 
came hardened  to  it,  and  liked  the  excite- 
ment of  driving  one  horse  after  another 
round  the  block,  and  deciding  upon  him. 
To  a  horse,  they  had  none  of  the  qualities 
commended  by  the  professor,  but  they  had 
many  others  which  the  dealers  praised. 
These  persons  were  uot  discouraged  when 
he  refused  to  buy,  but  cheerfully  returned 
the  next  day  with  others  differently  ruin- 
ous. They  were  men  of  a  spirit  more 
obliging  than  my  friend  has  found  in  other 
walks.  One  of  them,  who  paid  him  a  pref- 
atory visit  in  his  library,  in  five  minutes 
augmented  from  six  to  seven  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds  the  weight  of  a  pony-horse, 
[    7    ] 


BUYING  A  HORSE 

which  he  wished  to  sell.  ("  What  you 
want,"  said  the  Chevaliers,  "  is  a  pony- 
horse,"  and  my  friend,  gratefully  catching 
at  the  phrase,  had  gone  about  saying  he 
wanted  a  pony-horse.  After  that,  hulking 
brutes  of  from  eleven  to  thirteen  hundred 
pounds  were  every  day  brought  to  him  as 
pony-horses.)  The  same  dealer  came  an- 
other day  with  a  mustang,  in  whom  was 
no  fault,  and  who  had  every  appearance  of 
speed,  but  who  was  only  marking  time  as  it 
is  called  in  military  drill,  I  believe,  when 
he  seemed  to  be  getting  swiftly  over  the 
ground ;  he  showed  a  sociable  preference 
for  the  curbstone  in  turning  corners,  and 
was  condemned,  to  be  replaced  the  next 
evening  by  a  pony-horse  that  a  child  might 
ride  or  drive,  and  that  especcially  would 
not  shy.  Upon  experiment,  he  shied  half 
across  the  road,  and  the  fact  was  reported 
to  the  dealer.  He  smiled  compassionately. 
"  What  did  he  shy  at  f  " 
"  A  wheelbarrow.' ' 

[    8    J 


BUYING   A  HORSE 

"  Well !  I  never  see  the  hoss  yet  that 
would  rCt  shy  at  a  wheelbarrow." 

My  friend  owned  that  a  wheelbarrow 
was  of  an  alarming  presence,  but  he  had 
his  reserves  respecting  the  self-control  and 
intelligence  of  this  pony-horse.  The  dealer 
amiably  withdrew  him,  and  said  that  he 
would  bring  next  day  a  horse  —  if  he 
could  get  the  owner  to  part  with  a  family 
pet  —  that  would  suit ;  but  upon  investiga- 
tion it  appeared  that  this  treasure  was  what 
is  called  a  calico-horse,  and  my  friend,  who 
was  without  the  ambition  to  figure  in  the 
popular  eye  as  a  stray  circus-rider,  de- 
clined to  see  him. 

These  adventurous  spirits  were  not 
squeamish.  They  thrust  their  hands-  into 
the  lathery  mouths  of  their  brutes  to  show 
the  state  of  their  teeth,  and  wiped  their 
fingers  on  their  trousers  or  grass  after- 
wards, without  a  tremor,  though  my  friend 
could  never  forbear  a  shudder  at  the  sight. 
If  sometimes  they  came  with  a  desirable 
[    9    ] 


BUYING   A   HORSE 

animal,  the  price  was  far  beyond  his  mod- 
est figure ;  but  generally  they  seemed  to 
think  that  he  did  not  want  a  desirable  ani- 
mal. In  most  cases,  the  pony-horse  pro- 
nounced sentence  upon  himself  by  some 
gross  and  ridiculous  blemish  ;  but  some, 
times  my  friend  failed  to  hit  upon  any  ten- 
able excuse  for  refusing  him.  In  such  an 
event,  he  would  say,  with  an  air  of  easy 
and  candid  comradery,  "  Well,  now,  what 's 
the  matter  with  him  ? "  And  then  the 
dealer,  passing  his  hand  down  one  of  the 
pony-horse's  fore-legs,  would  respond,  with 
an  upward  glance  of  searching  inquiry  at 
my  friend,  "  Well,  he 's  a  leetle  mite  ten- 
der for'a'd." 

I  am  afraid  my  friend  grew  to  have  a 
cruel  pleasure  in  forcing  them  to  this  ex- 
posure of  the  truth  ;  but  he  excused  him- 
self upon  the  ground  that  they  never  ex^ 
pected  him  to  be  alarmed  at  this  tenderness 
forward,  and  that  their  truth  was  not  a 
tribute  to  virtue,  but  was  contempt  of  his 
[    10    ] 


BUYING   A   HORSE 

ignorance.  Nevertheless,  it  was  truth ; 
and  he  felt  that  it  must  be  his  part  there- 
after to  confute  the  common  belief  that 
there  is  no  truth  in  horse-trades. 

These  people  were  not  usually  the  own- 
ers of  the  horses  they  brought,  but  the 
emissaries  or  agents  of  the  owners.  Often 
they  came  merely  to  show  a  horse,  and 
were  not  at  all  sure  that  his  owner  would 
part  with  him  on  any  terms,  as  he  was  a 
favorite  with  the  ladies  of  the  family.  An 
impenetrable  mystery  hung  about  the  own- 
er, through  which  he  sometimes  dimly 
loomed  as  a  gentleman  in  failing  health, 
who  had  to  give  up  his  daily  drives,  and 
had  no  use  for  the  horse.  There  were 
cases  in  which  the  dealer  came  secretly, 
from  pure  zeal,  to  show  a  horse  whose 
owner  supposed  him  still  in  the  stable,  and 
who  must  be  taken  back  before  his  ab- 
sence was  noticed.  If  my  friend  insisted 
upon  knowing  the  owner  and  conferring 
with  him,  in  any  of  these  instances,  it  was 
[    11    1 


BUYING   A   HORSE 

darkly  admitted  that  he  was  a  gentleman 
in  the  livery  business  over  in  Somerville 
or  down  in  the  Lower  Port.  Truth,  it 
seemed,  might  be  absent  or  present  in  a 
horse-trade,  but  mystery  was  essential. 

The  dealers  had  a  jargon  of  their  own, 
in  which  my  friend  became  an  expert. 
They  did  not  say  that  a  horse  weighed  a 
thousand  pounds,  but  ten  hundred ;  he 
was  not  worth  a  hundred  and  twenty-five 
dollars,  but  one  and  a  quarter  ;  he  was  not 
going  on  seven  years  old,  but  was  coming 
seven.  There  are  curious  facts,  by  the 
way,  in  regard  to  the  age  of  horses  which 
are  not  generally  known.  A  horse  is 
never  of  an  even  age  :  that  is,  he  is  not 
six,  or  eight,  or  ten,  but  five,  or  seven,  or 
nine  years  old  ;  he  is  sometimes,  but  not 
often,  eleven  ;  he  is  never  thirteen ;  his 
favorite  time  of  life  is  seven,  and  he  rarely 
gets  beyond  it,  if  on  sale.  My  friend  found 
the  number  of  horses  brought  into  the 
world  in  1871  quite  beyond  computation. 
[   vi   ] 


BUYING  A   HORSE 

}fe  also  found  that  most  hard-working 
horses  were  sick  or  ailing,  as  most  hard- 
working men  and  women  are ;  that  per- 
fectly sound  horses  are  as  rare  as  perfectly 
sound  human  beings,  and  are  apt,  like  the 
latter,  to  be  vicious. 

He  began  to  have  a  quick  eye  for  the 
characteristics  of  horses,  and  could  walk 
round  a  proffered  animal  and  scan  his 
points  with  the  best.  "  What,"  he  would 
ask,  of  a  given  beast,  "  makes  him  let  his 
lower  lip  hang  down  in  that  imbecile  man- 
ner ?  " 

"  Oh,  he 's  got  a  parrot-mouth.  Some 
folks  like  'em."  Here  the  dealer  would 
pull  open  the  creature's  flabby  lips,  and 
discover  a  beak  like  that  of  a  polyp ;  and 
the  cleansing  process  on  the  grass  or  trou- 
sers would  take  place. 

Of  another.  "  What  makes  him  trot  in 
that  spread-out,  squatty  way,  behind  ?  "  he 
demanded,  after  the  usual  tour  of  the 
block. 

[    13    ] 


BUYING   A   HORSE 

"  He  travels  wide.  Horse  men  prefer 
that." 

They  preferred  any  ugliness  or  awk- 
wardness in  a  horse  to  the  opposite  grace 
or  charm,  and  all  that  my  friend  could 
urge,  in  meek  withdrawal  from  negotia- 
tion, was  that  he  was  not  of  an  educated 
taste.  In  the  course  of  long  talks,  which 
frequently  took  the  form  of  warnings,  he 
became  wise  in  the  tricks  practiced  by  all 
dealers  except  his  interlocutor.  One  of 
these,  a  device  for  restoring  youth  to  an 
animal  nearing  the  dangerous  limit  of 
eleven,  struck  him  as  peculiarly  ingenious. 
You  pierce  the  forehead,  and  blow  into  it 
with  a  quill ;  this  gives  an  agreeable  full- 
ness, and  erects  the  drooping  ears  in  a 
spirited  and  mettlesome  manner,  so  that  a 
horse  coming  eleven  will  look  for  a  time 
as  if  he  were  coming  five. 

After  a  thorough  course  of  the  volunteer 
dealers,  and  after  haunting  the  Chevaliers' 
stables  for  several  weeks,  my  friend  found 

r  14  i 


BUYING   A  HORSE 

that  not  money  alone  was  needed  to  buy  a 
horse.  The  affair  began  to  wear  a  sinister 
aspect.  He  had  an  uneasy  fear  that  in  sev- 
eral cases  he  had  refused  the  very  horse  he 
wanted  with  the  aploirib  he  had  acquired  in 
dismissing  undesirable  beasts.  The  fact 
was  he  knew  less  about  horses  than  when 
he  began  to  buy,  while  he  had  indefinitely 
enlarged  his  idle  knowledge  of  men,  of 
their  fatuity  and  hollowness.  He  learned 
that  men  whom  he  had  always  envied  their 
brilliant  omniscience  in  regard  to  horses, 
as  they  drove  him  out  behind  their  dash- 
ing trotters,  were  quite  ignorant  and  help- 
less in  the  art  of  buying  ;  they  always  got 
somebody  else  to  buy  their  horses  for 
them.  "  Find  a  man  you  can  trust,"  they 
said,  "  and  then  put  yourself  in  his  hands. 
And  never  trust  anybody  about  the  health 
of  a  horse.  Take  him  to  a  veterinary  sur- 
geon, and  have  him  go  all  over  him." 

My  friend  grew  sardonic  ;  then  he  grew 
melancholy  and  haggard.    There  was  some- 
[   15   ] 


BUYING  A   HORSE 

thing  very  straDge  in  the  fact  that  a  person 
unattainted  of  crime,  and  not  morally  dis- 
abled in  any  known  way,  could  not  take 
his  money  and  buy  such  a  horse  as  he 
wanted  with  it.  His  acquaintance  began 
to  recommend  men  to  him.  "  If  you  want 
a  horse,  Captain  Jenks  is  your  man." 
"  Why  don't  you  go  to  Major  Snaffle  ? 
He  'd  take  pleasure  in  it."  But  my  friend, 
naturally  reluctant  to  trouble  others,  and 
sickened  by  long  failure,  as  well  as  mad- 
dened by  the  absurdity  that  if  you  wanted 
a  horse  you  must  first  get  a  man,  neglected 
this  really  good  advice.  He  lost  his  inter- 
est in  the  business,  and  dismissed  with 
lack-lustre  indifference  the  horses  which 
continued  to  be  brought  to  his  gate.  He 
felt  that  his  position  before  the  community 
was  becoming  notorious  and  ridiculous. 
He  slept  badly  ;  his  long  endeavor  for  a 
horse  ended  in  nightmares. 

One  day  he  said  to  a  gentleman  whose 
turn-out  he  had  long  admired,  "  I  wonder 
if  you  could  n't  find  me  a  horse  ! " 
[    16   ] 


BUYING   A  HORSE 

"  Want  a  horse  ?  " 

"  Want  a  horse !  I  thought  my  need 
was  known  beyond  the  sun.  I  thought  my 
want  of  a  horse  was  branded  on  my  fore- 
head." 

This  gentleman  laughed,  and  then  he 
said,  "  I  've  just  seen  a  mare  that  would 
suit  you.  I  thought  of  buying  her,  but  I 
want  a  match,  and  this  mare  is  too  small. 
She  '11  be  round  here  in  fifteen  minutes, 
and  I  '11  take  you  out  with  her.  Can  you 
wait?" 

"  Wait !  "  My  friend  laughed  in  his 
turn. 

The  mare  dashed  up  before  the  fifteen 
minutes  had  passed.  She  was  beautiful, 
black  as  a  coal ;  and  kind  as  a  kitten,  said 
her  driver.  My  friend  thought  her  head 
was  rather  big.  "  Why,  yes,  she  's  a  pony- 
horse  ;  that 's  what  I  like  about  her.'* 

She  trotted  off  wonderfully,  and  my 
friend  felt  that  the  thing  was  now  done. 

The  gentleman,  who  was  driving,  laid 
[    17   1 


BUYING   A   HORSE 

his  head  on  one  side,  and  listened.  "  Clicks, 
don't  she  ?  " 

"  She  does  click,"  said  my  friend  oblig- 
ingly. 

"  Hear  it  ?  "  asked  the  gentleman. 

"  Well,  if  you  ask  me,"  said  my  friend, 
"  I  don't  hear  it.     What  is  clicking?  " 

"  Oh,  striking  the  heel  of  her  fore-foot 
with  the  toe  of  her  hind-foot.  Sometimes 
it  comes  from  bad  shoeing.  Some  people 
like  it.  I  don't  myself/'  After  a  while 
he  added,  "  If  you  can  get  this  mare  for  a 
hundred  and  twenty-five,  you  'd  better  buy 
her." 

"Well,  I  will,"  said  my  friend.  He 
would  have  bought  her,  in  fact,  if  she  had 
clicked  like  a  noiseless  sewing-machine. 
But  the  owner,  remote  as  Medford,  and  in- 
visibly dealing,  as  usual,  through  a  third 
person,  would  not  sell  her  for  one  and  a 
quarter ;  he  wanted  one  and  a  half.  Be- 
sides, another  Party  was  trying  to  get  her ; 
and  now  ensued  a  negotiation  which  for 
[    18    ] 


BUYING  A  HORSE 

intricacy  and  mystery  surpassed  all  the 
others.  It  was  conducted  in  my  friend's 
interest  by  one  who  had  the  difficult  task 
of  keeping  the  owner's  imagination  in 
check  and  his  demands  within  bounds,  for 
it  soon  appeared  that  he  wanted  even  more 
than  one  and  a  half  for  her.  Unseen  and 
inaccessible,  he  grew  every  day  more  un- 
manageable. He  entered  into  relations 
with  the  other  Party,  and  it  all  ended  in 
his  sending  her  out  one  day  after  my  friend 
had  gone  into  the  country,  and  requiring 
him  to  say  at  once  that  he  would  give  one 
and  a  half.  He  was  not  at  home,  and  he 
never  saw  the  little  mare  again.  This  con- 
firmed him  in  the  belief  that  she  was  the 
very  horse  he  ought  to  have  had. 

People  had  now  begun  to  say  to  him, 
"  Why  don't  you  advertise  ?  Advertise  for 
a  gentleman's  pony-horse  and  phaeton  and 
harness  complete.  You  '11  have  a  perfect 
procession  of  them  before  night."  This 
proved  true.  His  advertisement,  mystically 
[    19    ] 


BUYING  A  HORSE 

worded  after  the  fashion  of  those  things, 
found  abundant  response.  But  the  estab- 
lishments which  he  would  have  taken  he 
could  not  get  at  the  figure  he  had  set,  and 
those  which  his  money  would  buy  he  would 
not  have.  They  came  at  all  hours  of  the 
day  ;  and  he  never  returned  home  after  an 
an  absence  without  meeting  the  reproach 
that  now  the  very  horse  he  wanted  had 
just  been  driven  away,  and  would  not  be 
brought  back,  as  his  owner  lived  in  Biller- 
ica,  and  only  happened  to  be  down.  A 
few  equipages  really  appeared  desirable, 
but  in  regard  to  these  his  jaded  faculties 
refused  to  work  :  he  could  decide  nothing ; 
his  volition  was  extinct ;  he  let  them  come 
and  go. 

It  was  at  this  period  that  people  who  had 
at  first  been  surprised  that  he  wished  to  buy 
a  horse  came  to  believe  that  he  had  bought 
one,  and  were  astonished  to  learn  that  he 
had  not.  He  felt  the  pressure  of  public 
opinion. 

[    20     1 


BUYING  A   HORSE 

He  began  to  haunt  the  different  sale-sta- 
bles in  town,  and  to  look  at  horses  with  a 
view  to  buying  at  private  sale.  Every  fa- 
cility for  testing  them  was  offered  him,  but 
he  could  not  make  up  his  mind.  In  feeble 
wantonness  he  gave  appointments  which 
he  knew  he  should  not  keep,  and,  passing 
his  days  in  an  agony  of  multitudinous  inde- 
cision, he  added  to  the  lies  in  the  world  the 
hideous  sum  of  his  broken  engagements. 
From  time  to  time  he  forlornly  appeared 
at  the  Chevaliers',  and  refreshed  his  cor- 
rupted nature  by  contact  with  their  sterling 
integrity.  Once  he  ventured  into  their 
establishment  just  before  an  auction  began, 
and  remained  dazzled  by  the  splendor  of  a 
spectacle  which  I  fancy  can  be  paralleled 
only  by  some  dream  of  a  mediaeval  tourna- 
ment. The  horses,  brilliantly  harnessed, 
accurately  shod,  and  standing  tall  on  bur- 
nished hooves,  their  necks  curved  by  the 
check  rein  and  their  black  and  blonde 
manes  flowing  over  the  proud  arch,  lustrous 

[    21     ] 


BUYING  A  HORSE 

and  wrinkled  like  satin,  were  ranged  in  a 
glittering  hemicycle.  They  affected  my 
friend  like  the  youth  and  beauty  of  his  ear- 
liest evening  parties ;  he  experienced  a 
sense  of  bashfulness,  of  sickening  personal 
demerit.  He  could  not  have  had  the  au- 
dacity to  bid  on  one  of  those  superb  creat- 
ures, if  all  the  Chevaliers  together  had 
whispered  him  that  here  at  last  was  the 
very  horse. 

I  pass  over  an  unprofitable  interval  in 
which  he  abandoned  himself  to  despair,  and 
really  gave  up  the  hope  of  being  able  ever 
to  buy  a  horse.  During  this  interval  he 
removed  from  Charlesbridge  to  the  coun- 
try, and  found  himself,  to  his  self-scorn  and 
self-pity,  actually  reduced  to  hiring  a  livery 
horse  by  the  day.  But  relief  was  at  hand. 
The  carpenter  who  had  remained  to  finish 
up  the  new  house  after  my  friend  had  gone 
into  it  bethought  himself  of  a  firm  in  his 
place  who  brought  on  horses  from  the 
West,  and  had  the  practice  of  selling  a 
[    22    ] 


BUYING  A  HORSE 

horse  on  trial,  and  constantly  replacing  it 
with  other  horses  till  the  purchaser  was 
suited.  This  seemed  an  ideal  arrangement, 
and  the  carpenter  said  that  he  thought  they 
had  the  very  horse  my  friend  wanted. 

The  next  day  he  drove  him  up,  and  upon 
the  plan  of  successive  exchanges  till  the 
perfect  horse  was  reached,  my  friend 
bought  him  for  one  and  a  quarter,  the  fig- 
ure which  he  had  kept  in  mind  from  the 
first.  He  bought  a  phaeton  and  harness 
from  the  same  people,  and  when  the  whole 
equipage  stood  at  his  door,  he  felt  the  long- 
delayed  thrill  of  pride  and  satisfaction. 
The  horse  was  of  the  Morgan  breed,  a 
bright  bay,  small  and  round  and  neat,  with 
a  little  head  tossed  high,  and  a  gentle  yet 
alert  movement.  He  was  in  the  prime  of 
youth,  of  the  age  of  which  every  horse  de- 
sires to  be,  and  was  just  coming  seven. 
My  friend  had  already  taken  him  to  a 
horse-doctor,  who  for  one  dollar  had  gone 
all  over  him,  and  pronounced  him  sound  as 
[    23    ] 


BUYING  A   HOESE 

a  fish,  and  complimented  his  new  owner 
upon  his  acquisition.  It  all  seemed  too 
good  to  be  true.  As  Billy  turned  his  soft 
eye  on  the  admiring  family  group,  and  suf- 
fered one  of  the  children  to  smooth  his 
nose  while  another  held  a  lump  of  sugar  to 
his  dainty  lips,  his  amiable  behavior  restored 
my  friend  to  his  peace  of  mind  and  his  long- 
lost  faith  in  a  world  of  reason. 

The  ridiculous  planet,  wavering  bat-like 
through  space,  on  which  it  had  been  im- 
possible for  an  innocent  man  to  buy  a  suit- 
able horse  was  a  dream  of  the  past,  and  he 
had  the  solid,  sensible  old  earth  under  his 
feet  once  more.  He  mounted  into  the  phae- 
ton and  drove  off  with  his  wife;  he  re- 
turned and  gave  each  of  the  children  a  drive 
in  succession.  He  told  them  that  any  of 
them  could  drive  Billy  as  much  as  they 
liked,  and  he  quieted  a  clamor  for  exclu- 
sive ownership  on  the  part  of  each  by  de- 
claring that  Billy  belonged  to  the  whole 
family.  To  this  day  he  cannot  look  back 
[    24    ] 


BUYING  A  HORSE 

to  those  moments  without  tenderness.  If 
Billy  had  any  apparent  fault,  it  was  an 
amiable  indolence.  But  this  made  him  all 
the  safer  for  the  children,  and  it  did  not 
really  amount  to  laziness.  While  on  sale 
he  had  been  driven  in  a  provision  cart,  and 
had  therefore  the  habit  of  standing  un- 
hitched. One  had  merely  to  fling  the  reins 
into  the  bottom  of  the  phaeton  and  leave 
Billy  to  his  own  custody.  His  other  habit 
of  drawing  up  at  kitchen  gates  was  not  con- 
firmed, and  the  fact  that  he  stumbled  on  his 
way  to  the  doctor  who  pronounced  him 
blameless  was  reasonably  attributed  to  a 
loose  stone  at  the  foot  of  the  hill ;  the  mis- 
step resulted  in  a  barked  shin,  but  a  little 
wheel-grease,  in  a  horse  of  Billy's  com- 
plexion, easily  removed  the  evidence  of 
this. 

It   was   natural    that    after   Billy    was 

bought   and   paid   for,   several   extremely 

desirable  horses  should  be  offered  to  my 

friend  by  their  owners,  who  came  in  person, 

[    25    ] 


BUYING   A  HORSE 

stripped  of  all  the  adventitious  mystery  of 
agents  and  middle-men.  They  were  gen- 
tlemen, and  they  spoke  the  English  habit- 
ual with  persons  not  corrupted  by  horses. 
My  friend  saw  them  come  and  go  with 
grief ;  for  he  did  not  like  to  be  shaken  in 
his  belief  that  Billy  was  the  only  horse  in 
the  world  for  him,  and  he  would  have  liked 
to  purchase  their  animals,  if  only  to  show 
his  appreciation  of  honor  and  frankness  and 
sane  language.  Yet  he  was  consoled  by 
the  possession  of  Billy,  whom  he  found  in- 
creasingly excellent  and  trustworthy.  Any 
of  the  family  drove  him  about ;  he  stood 
unhitched ;  he  was  not  afraid  of  cars  ;  he 
was  as  kind  as  a  kitten  ;  he  had  not,  as  the 
neighboring  coachman  said,  a  voice,  though 
he  seemed  a  little  loively  in  coming  out  of 
the  stable  sometimes.  He  went  well  un- 
der the  saddle  ;  he  was  a  beauty,  and  if  he 
had  a  voice,  it  was  too  great  satisfaction  in 
his  personal  appearance. 

One  evening  after  tea,  the  young  gentle- 
[   26   J 


BUYING   A  HORSE 

man,  who  was  about  to  drive  Billy  out, 
stung  by  the  reflection  that  he  had  not 
taken  blackberries  and  cream  twice,  ran 
into  the  house  to  repair  the  omission,  and 
left  Billy,  as  usual,  unhitched  at  the  door. 
During  his  absence,  Billy  caught  sight  of 
his  stable,  and  involuntarily  moved  towards 
it.  Finding  himself  unchecked,  he  gently 
increased  his  pace  ;  and  when  my  friend 
looking  up  from  the  melon-patch  which 
he  was  admiring,  called  out,  "  Ho,  Billy  f 
Whoa,  Billy !  "  and  headed  him  off  from 
the  gap,  Billy  profited  by  the  circumstance 
to  turn  into  the  pear  orchard.  The  elastic 
turf  under  his  unguided  hoof  seemed  to 
exhilarate  him  ;  his  pace  became  a  trot,  a 
canter,  a  gallop,  a  tornado ;  the  reins  flut- 
tered like  ribbons  in  the  air ;  the  phaeton 
flew  ruining  after.  In  a  terrible  cyclone 
the  equipage  swept  round  the  neighbor's 
house,  vanished,  reappeared,  swooped  down 
his  lawn,  and  vanished  again.  It  was  in- 
credible. 

[    27     1 


BUYING  A  HORSE 

My  friend  stood  transfixed  among  his 
melons.  He  knew  that  his  neighbor's 
children  played  under  the  porte-cochere 
on  the  other  side  of  the  house  which  Billy 
had  just  surrounded  in  his  flight,  and  prob- 
ably ....  My  friend's  first  impulse  was 
not  to  go  and  see,  but  to  walk  into  his 
own  house,  and  ignore  the  whole  affair. 
But  you  cannot  really  ignore  an  affair  of 
that  kind.  You  must  face  it,  and  com- 
monly it  stares  you  out  of  countenance. 
Commonly,  too,  it  knows  how  to  choose 
its  time  so  as  to  disgrace  as  well  as  crush 
its  victim.  His  neighbor  had  people  to 
tea,  and  long  before  my  friend  reached 
the  house  the  host  and  his  guests  were  all 
out  on  the  lawn,  having  taken  the  precau- 
tion to  bring  their  napkins  with  them. 

"  The  children  !  "  gasped  my  friend. 

"Oh,  they  were  all  in  bed,"  said  the 
neighbor,  and  he  began  to  laugh.  That 
was  right ;  my  friend  would  have  mocked 
at  the  calamity  if  it  had  been  his  neigh- 

[     28    J 


BUYING  A  HORSE 

bor's.  c<  Let  us  go  and  look  up  your  pha- 
eton." He  put  his  hand  on  the  naked 
flank  of  a  fine  young  elm,  from  which  the 
bark  had  just  been  stripped.  "  Billy  seems 
to  have  passed  this  way." 

At  the  foot  of  a  stone-wall  four  feet 
high  lay  the  phaeton,  with  three  wheels 
in  the  air,  and  the  fourth  crushed  flat 
against  the  axle ;  the  willow  back  was 
broken,  the  shafts  were  pulled  out,  and 
Billy  was  gone. 

"  Good  thing  there  was  nobody  in  it," 
said  the  neighbor. 

"  Good  thing  it  did  n't  run  down  some 
Irish  family,  and  get  you  in  for  damages," 
said  a  guest. 

It  appeared,  then,  that  there  were  two 
good  things  about  this  disaster.  My  friend 
had  not  thought  there  were  so  many,  but 
while  he  rejoiced  in  this  fact,  he  rebelled 
at  the  notion  that  a  sorrow  like  that  ren- 
dered the  sufferer  in  any  event  liable  for 
damages,  aDd  he  resolved  that  he  never 
[    29    ] 


BUYING  A  HORSE 

would  have  paid  them.     But  probably  he 
would. 

Some  half-grown  boys  got  the  phaeton 
right-side  up,  and  restored  its  shafts  and 
cushions,  and  it  limped  away  with  them 
towards  the  carriage-house.  Presently  an- 
other half-grown  boy  came  riding  Billy  up 
the  hill.  Billy  showed  an  inflated  nostril 
and  an  excited  eye,  but  physically  he  was 
unharmed,  save  for  a  slight  scratch  on 
what  was  described  as  the  off  hind-leg; 
the  reader  may  choose  which  leg  this  was. 

"  The  worst  of  it  is,"  said  the  guest, 
"  that  you  never  can  trust  'em  after  they  've 
run  off  once." 

"  Have  some  tea  ?  "  said  the  host  to  my 
friend. 

"  No,  thank  you,"  said  my  friend,  in 
whose  heart  the  worst  of  it  rankled ;  and 
he  walked  home  embittered  by  his  guilty 
consciousness  that  Billy  ought  never  to 
have  been  left  untied.  But  it  was  not 
this  self-reproach;  it  was  not  the  muti- 
[   30    1 


BUYING  A   HORSE 

lated  phaeton ;  it  was  not  the  loss  of 
Billy,  who  must  now  be  sold ;  it  was  the 
wreck  of  settled  hopes,  the  renewed  sus- 
pense of  faith,  the  repetition  of  the  trag- 
ical farce  of  buying  another  horse,  that 
most  grieved  my  friend. 

Billy's  former  owners  made  a  feint  of 
supplying  other  horses  in  his  place,  but 
the  only  horse  supplied  was  an  aged  vet- 
eran with  the  scratches,  who  must  have 
come  seven  early  in  our  era,  and  who, 
from  his  habit  of  getting  about  on  tip- 
toe, must  have  been  tender  forVd  beyond 
anything  of  my  friend's  previous  experi- 
ence. Probably  if  he  could  have  waited 
they  might  have  replaced  Billy  in  time, 
but  their  next  installment  from  the  West 
produced  nothing  suited  to  his  wants  but 
a  horse  with  the  presence  and  carriage  of 
a  pig,  and  he  preferred  to  let  them  sell 
Billy  for  what  he  would  bring,  and  to 
trust  his  fate  elsewhere.  Billy  had  fallen 
nearly  one  half  in  value,  and  he  brought 
[    31    ] 


BUYING  A  HORSE 

very  little  —  to  his  owner ;  though  the 
new  purchaser  was  afterwards  reported  to 
value  him  at  much  more  than  what  my 
friend  had  paid  for  him.  These  things 
are  really  mysteries ;  you  cannot  fathom 
them;  it  is  idle  to  try.  My  friend  re- 
mained grieving  over  his  own  folly  and 
carelessness,  with  a  fond  hankering  for 
the  poor  little  horse  he  had  lost,  and  the 
belief  that  he  should  never  find  such  an- 
other.  Yet  he  was  not  without  a  philan- 
thropist's consolation.  He  had  added  to 
the  stock  of  harmless  pleasures  in  a  de- 
gree of  which  he  could  not  have  dreamed. 
All  his  acquaintance  knew  that  he  had 
bought  a  horse,  and  they  all  seemed  now 
to  conspire  in  asking  him  how  he  got  on 
with  it.  He  was  forced  to  confess  the 
truth.  On  hearing  it,  his  friends  burst 
into  shouts  of  laughter,  and  smote  their 
persons,  and  stayed  themselves  against 
lamp-posts  and  house-walls.  They  begged 
his  pardon,  and  then  they  began  again, 
[    32   ] 


BUYING  A  HORSE 

and  shouted  and  roared  anew.     Since  the 

gale   which   blew   down    the    poet 's 

chimneys  and  put  him  to  the  expense  of 
rebuilding  them,  no  joke  so  generally  satis- 
factory had  been  offered  to  the  community. 
My  friend  had,  in  his  time,  achieved  the 
reputation  of  a  wit  by  going  about  and 
and  saying  ,  "  Did  you  know 's  chim- 
neys had  blown  down  ?  "  and  he  had  now 
himself  the  pleasure  of  causing  the  like 
quality  of  wit  in  others. 

Having  abandoned  the  hope  of  getting 
anything  out  of  the  people  who  had  sold 
him  Billy,  he  was  for  a  time  the  prey  of 
an  inert  despair,  in  which  he  had  not  even 
spirit  to  repine  at  the  disorder  of  a  uni- 
verse in  which  he  could  not  find  a  horse. 
No  horses  were  now  offered  to  him,  for  it 
had  become  known  throughout  the  trade 
that  he  had  bought  a  horse.  He  had 
therefore  to  set  about  counteracting  this 
impression  with  what  feeble  powers  were 
left  him.  Of  the  facts  of  that  period  he 
[   33    ] 


BUYING  A  HORSE 

remembers  with  confusion  and  remorse  the 
trouble  to  which  he  put  the  owner  of  the 
pony-horse  Pansy,  whom  he  visited  re- 
peatedly in  a  neighboring  town,  at  a  loss 
of  time  and  money  to  himself,  and  with  no 
result  but  to  embarrass  Pansy's  owner  in 
his  relations  with  people  who  had  hired 
him  and  did  not  wish  him  sold.  Some- 
thing of  the  old  baffling  mystery  hung  over 
Pansy's  whereabouts ;  he  was  with  diffi- 
culty produced,  and  when  en  evidence  he 
was  not  the  Pansy  my  friend  had  expected. 
He  paltered  with  his  regrets ;  he  covered 
his  disappointment  with  what  pretenses  ha 
could ;  and  he  waited  till  he  could  tele- 
graph back  his  adverse  decision.  His  con- 
clusion was  that,  next  to  proposing  mar- 
riage, there  was  no  transaction  of  life  that 
involved  so  many  delicate  and  complex  re- 
lations as  buying  a  horse,  and  that  the 
rupture  of  a  horse-trade  was  little  less  em- 
barrassing and  distressing  to  all  concerned 
than  a  broken  engagement.  There  was  a 
[    34    ] 


BUYING  A  HORSE 

terrible  intimacy  in  the  affair  ;  it  was 
alarmingly  personal.  He  went  about  sor- 
rowing for  the  pain  and  disappointment  he 
had  inflicted  on  many  amiable  people  of 
all  degrees  who  had  tried  to  supply  him 
with  a  horse. 

"  Look  here,"  said  his  neighbor,  finding 
him  in  this  low  state,  "  why  don't  you  get 
a  horse  of  the  gentleman  who  furnishes 
mine  ?  "  This  had  been  suggested  before, 
and  my  friend  explained  that  he  had  dis- 
liked to  make  trouble.  His  scruples  were 
lightly  set  aside,  and  he  suffered  himself  to 
be  entreated.  The  fact  was  he  was  so  dis- 
couraged with  his  attempt  to  buy  a  horse 
that  if  any  one  had  now  given  him  such  a 
horse  as  he  wanted  he  would  have  taken  it. 

One  sunny,  breezy  morning  his  neigh- 
bor drove  my  friend  over  to  the  beautiful 
farm  of  the  good  genius  on  whose  kindly 
offices  he  had  now  fixed  his  languid  hopes. 
I  need  not  say  what  the  landscape  was  in 
mid- August,  or  how,  as  they  drew  near  the 
[   35   } 


BUYING   A   HORSE 

farm,  the  air  was  enriched  with  the  breath 
of  vast  orchards  of  early  apples,  —  apples 
that  no  forced  fingers  rude  shatter  from 
their  stems,  but  that  ripen  and  mellow  un- 
touched, till  they  drop  into  the  straw  with 
which  the  orchard  aisles  are  bedded  ;  it  is 
the  poetry  of  horticulture ;  it  is  Art  prac- 
ticing the  wise  and  gracious  patience  of 
Nature,  and  offering  to  the  Market  a  Sum- 
mer Sweeting  of  the  Hesperides. 

The  possessor  of  this  luscious  realm  at 
once  took  my  friend's  case  into  considera- 
tion ;  he  listened,  the  owner  of  a  hundred 
horses,  with  gentle  indulgence  to  the  shape- 
less desires  of  a  man  whose  wildest  dream 
was  one  horse.  At  the  end  he  said,  "  I  see 
you  want  a  horse  that  can  take  care  of 
himself." 

"No,"  replied  my  friend,  with  the  in- 
spiration of  despair.  "I  want  a  horse 
that  can  take  care  of  me." 

The  good  genius  laughed,  and  turned 
the  conversation.  Neither  he  nor  my 
[   36   ] 


BUYING   A  HORSE 

friend's    neighbor   was    a   man    of    many- 
words,  and  like  taciturn  people  they  talked 
in  low  tones.     The  three  moved  about  the 
room  and  looked  at  the   Hispano-Roman 
pictures  ;  they  had  a  glass  of  sherry ;  from 
time  to  time  something  was  casually  mur- 
mured about  Frank.     My  friend  felt  that 
he  was  in  good  hands,  and  left  the  affair 
to  them.     It  ended  in  a  visit  to  the  stable, 
where    it    appeared    that    this    gentleman 
had  no  horse  to  sell  among   his  hundred 
which  exactly  met  my  friend's  want,  but 
that  he  proposed  to  lend  him  Frank  while 
a  certain  other  animal  was  put  in  training 
for    the    difficult  office   he   required  of   a 
horse.       One    of    the    men    was    sent   for 
Frank,  and  in  the    mean  time   my  friend 
was  shown  some  gaunt  and  graceful  thor- 
oughbreds, and  taught  to  see  the  difference 
between    them    and    the    plebeian    horse. 
But     Frank,    though     no     thoroughbred, 
eclipsed   these    patricians  when  he    came. 
He  had  a  little  head,  and  a  neck  gallantly 
[    37    ] 


BUYING  A  HORSE 

arched;  he  was  black  and  plump  and 
smooth,  and  though  he  carried  himself 
with  a  petted  air,  and  was  a  dandy  to  the 
tips  of  his  hooves,  his  knowing  eye  was 
kindly.  He  turned  it  upon  my  friend 
with  the  effect  of  understanding  his  case  at 
a  glance. 

It  was  in  this  way  that  for  the  rest  of 
the  long,  lovely  summer  peace  was  re- 
established in  his  heart.  There  was  no 
question  of  buying  or  selling  Frank ;  there 
were  associations  that  endeared  him  be- 
yond money  to  his  owner ;  but  my  friend 
could  take  him  without  price.  The  situa- 
tion had  its  humiliation  for  a  man  who  had 
been  arrogantly  trying  to  buy  a  horse,  but 
he  submitted  with  grateful  meekness,  and 
with  what  grace  Heaven  granted  him  ; 
and  Frank  gayly  entered  upon  the  pecul- 
iar duties  of  his  position.  His  first  duty 
was  to  upset  all  preconceived  notions  of 
the  advantage  of  youth  in  a  horse.  Frank 
was  not  merely  not  coming  seven  or  nine, 

r  ss  i 


BUYING   A    HORSE 

but  his  age  was  an  even  number,  —  he  was 
sixteen  ;  and  it  was  his  owner's  theory, 
which  Frank  supported,  that  if  a  horse  was 
well  used  he  was  a  good  horse  till  twenty- 
five. 

The  truth  is  that  Frank  looked  like  a 
young  horse  ;  he  was  a  dandy  without  any 
of  the  ghastliness  which  attends  the  preser- 
vation of  youth  in  old  beaux  of  another 
species.  When  my  friend  drove  him  in 
the  rehabilitated  phaeton  he  felt  that  the 
turn-out  was  stylish,  and  he  learned  to 
consult  certain  eccentricities  of  Frank's  in 
the  satisfaction  of  his  pride.  One  of  these 
was  a  high  reluctance  to  be  passed  on  the 
road.  Frank  was  as  lazy  a  horse  —  but 
lazy  in  a  self-respectful,  aesthetic  way  —  as 
ever  was ;  yet  if  he  heard  a  vehicle  at  no 
matter  how  great  distance  behind  him  (and 
he  always  heard  it  before  his  driver),  he 
brightened  with  resolution  and  defiance, 
and  struck  out  with  speed  that  made  com- 
petition difficult.  If  my  friend  found  that 
[    39    ] 


BUYING   A   HORSE 

the  horse  behind  was  likely  to  pass  Frank, 
he  made  a  merit  of  holding  him  in.  If 
they  met  a  team,  he  lay  back  in  his  phae- 
ton, and  affected  not  to  care  to  be  going 
faster  than  a  walk,  any  way. 

One  of  the  things  for  which  he  chiefly 
prized  Frank  was  his  skill  in  backing  and 
turning.  He  is  one  of  those  men  who  be- 
come greatly  perturbed  when  required  to 
back  and  turn  a  vehicle;  he  cannot  tell 
(till  too  late)  whether  he  ought  to  pull  the 
right  rein  in  order  to  back  to  the  left,  or 
vice  versa;  he  knows,  indeed,  the  princi- 
ple, but  he  becomes  paralyzed  in  its  appli- 
cation. Frank  never  was  embarrassed, 
never  confused.  My  friend  had  but  to 
say,  "  Back,  Frank ! "  and  Frank  knew 
from  the  nature  of  the  ground  how  far  to 
back  and  which  way  to  turn.  He  has 
thus  extricated  my  friend  from  positions  in 
which  it  appeared  to  him  that  no  earthly 
power  could  relieve  him. 

In  going  up  hill  Frank  knew  just  when 
[    40   ] 


BUYING   A  HORSE 

to  give  himself  a  rest,  and  at  what  moment 
to  join  the  party  in  looking  about  and  en- 
joying the  prospect.  He  was  also  an  adept 
in  scratching  off  flies,  and  had  a  precision 
in  reaching  an  insect  anywhere  in  his  van 
with  one  of  his  rear  hooves  which  few  of 
us  attain  in  slapping  mosquitoes.  This  ac- 
tion sometimes  disquieted  persons  in  the 
phaeton,  but  Frank  knew  perfectly  well 
what  he  was  about,  and  if  harm  had  hap- 
pened to  the  people  under  his  charge  my 
friend  was  sure  that  Frank  could  have 
done  anything  short  of  applying  arnica 
and  telegraphing  to  their  friends.  His 
varied  knowledge  of  life  and  his  long  ex- 
perience had  satisfied  him  that  there  were 
very  few  things  to  be  afraid  of  in  this 
world.  Such  womanish  weaknesses  as  shy- 
ing and  starting  were  far  from  him,  and  he 
regarded  the  boisterous  behavior  of  loco- 
motives with  indifference.  He  had  not, 
indeed,  the  virtue  of  one  horse  offered  to  my 
friend's  purchase,  of  standing,  unmoved, 
[    41    ] 


BUYING   A  HORSE 

with  his  nose  against  a  passing  express 
train ;  but  he  was  certainly  not  afraid  of 
the  cars. 

Frank  was  by  no  means  what  Mr.  Em- 
erson calls  a  mush  of  concession  ;  he  was 
not  merely  amianle ;  he  had  his  moments 
of  self-assertion,  his  touches  of  asperity. 
It  was  not  safe  to  pat  his  nose,  like  the 
erring  Billy's ;  he  was  apt  to  bring  his 
handsome  teeth  together  in  proximity  to 
the  caressing  hand  with  a  sharp  click  and 
a  sarcastic  grin.  Not  that  he  ever  did,  or 
ever  would  really  bite.  So,  too,  when  left 
to  stand  long  under  fly-haunted  cover,  he 
he  would  start  off  afterwards  with  alarm- 
ing vehemence ;  and  he  objected  to  the 
saddle.  On  the  only  occasion  when  any 
of  my  friend's  family  mounted  him,  he 
trotted  gayly  over  the  grass  towards  the 
house,  with  the  young  gentleman  on  his 
back  ;  then,  without  warning,  he  stopped 
short,  a  slight  tremor  appeared  to  pass 
over  him,  and  his  rider  continued  the  ex- 

[     42     ] 


BUYING  A  HORSE 

cursion  some  ten  feet  farther,  alighting 
lump-wise  on  a  bunch  of  soft  turf  which 
Frank  had  selected  for  his  reception. 

The  summer  passed,  and  in  the  comfort 
of  Frank's  possession  my  friend  had  al- 
most abandoned  the  idea  of  ever  returning 
him  to  his  owner.  He  had  thoughts  of 
making  the  loan  permanent,  as  something 
on  the  whole  preferable  to  a  purchase. 
The  drives  continued  quite  into  December, 
over  roads  as  smooth  and  hard  as  any  in 
June,  and  the  air  was  delicious.  The  first 
snow  brought  the  suggestion  of  sleighing  ; 
but  that  cold  weather  about  Christmas  dis- 
persed these  gay  thoughts,  and  restored 
my  friend  to  virtue.  Word  came  from  the 
stable  that  Frank's  legs  were  swelling 
from  standing  so  long  without  going  out, 
and  my  friend  resolved  to  part  with  an 
animal  for  which  he  had  no  use.  I  do  not 
praise  him  for  this  ;  it  was  no  more  than 
his  duty ;  but  I  record  his  action  in  order 
to  account  for  the  fact  that  he  is  again 
.         t    43    1 


BUYING  A   HORSE 

without  a  horse,  and  now,  with  the  open- 
ing of  the  fine  weather,  is  beginning  once 
more  to  think  of  buying  one. 

But  he  is  in  no  mood  of  arrogant  con- 
fidence. He  has  satisfied  himself  that 
neither  love  nor  money  is  alone  adequate 
to  the  acquisition :  the  fates  also  must 
favor  it.  The  horse  which  Frank's  owner 
has  had  in  training  may  or  may  not  be 
just  the  horse  he  wants.  He  does  not 
know ;  he  humbly  waits  ;  and  he  trembles 
at  the  alternative  of  horses,  mystically 
summoned  from  space,  and  multitudin- 
ously  advancing  upon  him,  parrot-mouthed, 
pony-gaited,  tender  forVd,  and  traveling 
wide  behind. 


[   FINIS   ] 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .    A 


Webster  Family  Library  of  Veterinary  Medicine 
School  of  Veterinary  Medicine  at 

Tufts  University 

200  Westboro  Road 

(totn  Grafton,  MA  01636 


